So here goes. The first record I ever bought was Fatboy Slim‘s You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby, which I bought with my own money back in late 1998. I was 12 years old. It was the popular single of the jubilant and way too catchy “Praise You” that really caught my ear. The track was played pretty frequently in my area and that low-budget video–with the dance troupe pulling off a flash mob performance (before flash mobs were actually a thing!) outside of a packed theater in Los Angeles–was just too damn good. I snatched up Baby with the quickness, unfamiliar with the oddly-moniker’d Fatboy Slim…little did know how much awesome I was in for.

The most well-known alter ego of British producer Norman Cook, Fatboy Slim was one of the main sources of the awesome genre known as big beat. A true product of the ’90s, big beat was brash, bold, wild, and unabashedly electronic, known for the very fast tempos, samples, and the ’60s/’70s/’80s influences, perfect for tripping balls at a rave. It’s safe to say that big beat really influenced my musical interests, as I always love to go for fast songs, heavy on the sampling, technology, and attitude. Maybe that’s why I jumped into hip-hop.

Anyhow, Baby still holds up quite well after all these years. It’s elemental, very exploratory, and never dull– Well, okay, I never was a fan of “Build It Up – Tear It Down,” but still. Many of the tracks are still great listens nearly 14 years later (yowza), and I had several options for tonight’s post, like “Soul Surfing,” “The Rockafeller Skank,” “Right Here, Right Now,” “Fucking in Heaven,” and of course, “Praise You,” but this particular listen was one I really gravitated towards when I first heard it. “Gangster Trippin'” is all about those frenzied breaks. Such a good listen.